In describing ISIL, the President recently said, “ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death.” He has made similar remarks in the past. To say that ISIL does not speak for Islam is like saying that fundamentalist Christians don't speak for Christianity. They do in the sense that they speak for a particular version of Christianity. Catholics speak for a different version, and Lutherans for an even different version. The same is true for ISIL vis-a-vis Islam. It speaks for a particular version of the religion -- a fundamentalist version, as exemplified by the following passages in the Quran: “Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s Cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know” (e.g., http://quran.com/2/216, quran.com/9/38). The Quran explicitly and repeatedly commands Muslims to “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” (e.g., http://quran.com/2/191, quran.com/9/5), “strike off their heads” (e.g., quran.com/8/12, quran.com/47/4), make sex-slaves of their wives and daughters (e.g., quran.com/4/24, quran.com/33/50), and continue this jihad “until all opposition ends and all submit to ‘Allah’” (e.g., quran.com/8/39, quran.com/9/29). ... Not all Muslims subscribe to these injunctions or interpret them as violently or as literally, but there is ample justification in the Quran for what ISIL is doing. The president is simply wrong when he says that ISIL does not speak for Islam. It does if the Quran can be said to have any bearing on the beliefs and actions of its followers. Perhaps because his paternal grandfather was a Muslim and because he received religious instruction in a madrassa as a child, the president doesn't want to see the evil side of that religion. There is no other way to explain his claim, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that "Islam is a religion of peace."
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